Is Brooklyn Heights in 2011 Like Paris in the 1920s?

By on March 30, 2011 11:14 pm in Brooklyn Heights, Miscellany

Paul LaRosa thinks it is:

HuffPost NY: Laugh if you like, but I’ve been thinking more and more that Brooklyn, circa 2011, is very similar to what Paris was like nearly a century ago. Of course, I’m talking about the brownstone belt neighborhoods of Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Fort Greene, but you can throw DUMBO, Williamsburg and Red Hook in there as well.

Well, I doubt that the Saint-Germain-des-Prés of the time, or even now, was or is dominated by cellphone stores, nail salons, opticians, and real estate offices. Still, I think the argument is worth discussion. Thanks to reader Monty for the tip.

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  • Teddy

    Brooklyn is more like Paris today. It feels just as segregated and conflicted as the city of light.

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    The above is the exact case. Except Brooklyn like Paris of that (and this) era is ALSO directed by political and intellectual influences which are incompetent, corrupt, and inneffectual having all the depth of understanding and judgement…of a rain puddle.

    And like Paris in the 20’s, Brooklyn and New York are owned by the same group…..

    The events which followed shortly in Paris foreshadow what has already begun to happen here.

  • Demonter

    Brooklyn feels like old Paris…Manhattan is becoming more like Hong Kong.

  • AEB

    WHAT?!

  • Buddy Holly

    Who’s drinking the absinthe?

  • nabeguy

    This is what Paris looked like 100 years ago. Let’s hope that, after tomorrows rains, we don’t look the same.

    http://tinyurl.com/6gvesvu

  • http://Building Jeffrey J Smith

    Paris, and all of france in the 1920’s had suffered a great decline
    in quality of those in responsible positions and a declining general
    human quality society wide. France simply never recovered from the revolution.

    And like France never recovered from the effects of the jacobins-
    America never recovered from the social revolutionaries in the
    1960’s.

    And, as above, the same people who financially owned and ran France now own and run our country.

    But there ARE differences. First of all, in France, still had deep
    social and religious traditions. Secondly, there was a strong
    deep cultural community which has not yet arisen in this young
    country.

    But third and most importantly, France was never a part of the
    Anglo-American-well, you know…world financial TRIDENT which
    has sought total international control of our world.